fredrick stanton. and a discussion about medical issues and increasing the public awareness on trying to decrease medical errors. our guest for that is actor dennis quaid and dr. charles denham. thank you for watching "washington journal." that's all for today. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] . .

>> we've got this conference coming up monday and tuesday in washington, heads of state from across the world. wondering if a couple of things that happened during the past week, the israeli prime minister deciding not to show up, sending his deputy, and

also iran showing off its latest technology and seeming to thumb its nose to this whole effort. i'm wondering if that's, in your mind, casts a pal on this conference or does it focus people on the need to do something. >> well, i think that the main focus of the conference is going to be on matters usually not handled on the head of state level, and that is good house keeping, which is very important when it comes to nuclear materials. but i think what will come out of the conference is a accelerated plan to make sure that all of the, especially the medical nuclear materials around the world, which are small in quantity but highly enrismed, are properly cared for. the second aspect of the summit is you just have all these major world leaders coming including the leader of china and that's a chance to discuss whatever issues come up.

as to iran, i would expect that they would give us a loud die tribes and heavy doses of propaganda. >> what do you want to see from president obama from the obama administration in this summit? this is clearly a big opportunity for them to make their case on this issue. they've had a steady drum beat the last few weeks with this deal with russia signing the treaty, the nuclear posture review. what's your sense on them, whether they have any momentum coming to the summit? and what do you want to see them accomplish the next couple of days? >> well, i think they've got momentum on dealing with the rather technical issue of making sure that medical nuclear materials are well handled and that when they are no longer useful, that they're returned properly to where they can be reprocessed or disposed

of. as to the bigger issue of stopping the iranian nuclear program or dealing with the north korean program, i think we're doomed to failure as long as we maintain the policies of the bush and obama administration. that policy is that we beg but we never bargain. we have never told any country that if they'll help us deal with these nuclear problems we'll see it there way on any other issue, or that, for example, china's access to u.s. markets would be impeded in any way if they continue to support iran and north korean nuclear program which they're really supporting, although their rhetoric is on the other side. so as long as we try to persuade these countries that they ought to change their policies because they don't yet understand what is in their national interests, i think we're doomed to failure. our unwillingness to bargain,

to threaten, to make concessions dooms us to a world in which iran and north korea have nuclear weapons and that will be a very dangerous world. >> congressman, you were paying attention certainly to the president's remarks in meetings in prague. surrounding the signing of the new start treat yifplt and i wanted to ask you as the sanctions go, in terms of the russian radio sponse, are you confident that there will be any meaningful sanctions that the u.s. and russia together will have any greater way convincing china and others to go along? >> i think we'll made headway toward truly meaningless sanctions. even our administration is talk about smart sanctions which means dumb sanctions. the idea is that we're going to have sanctions that don't hurt the iranian economy. why would the iranian

government give up something so important as their weapons in order to get sanctions so inconsequential that they don't hurt the national economy? there are a few occasions where you can get a minor change in a nation's behavior by denying the leadership a chance to get tourist visas and visit disney world but i don't think acminjad wants to go to disney world and i don't think he wants to give up his nuclear programs just for a few concessions with or -- or avoiding sanctions that only affect the personal lives of the leadership group. we're going to have to do far more than is being talked about in washington let alone accepted in moscow. >> so why do you believe that sanctions that might be imposed by the u.s. but not by a broader spectrum of nations even if they would be stronger or more broad based would somehow compel iran in a way

that u.s. sanctions wouldn't? >> first, we can go to harsh extra territoryal sanctions. now, none of this is easy, none of this is simple. none of this is without controversy. which is why it hasn't been done. it's not like it's just sitting there and we failed to pick it up. we have the iran sanctions act. we used to call it the iran lybia sanctions act. we applied it against lybia and it worked and lybia has given up its nuclear program. but since the late 1990s, three presidents have had it as policy to violate american law in order to protect tehran's business partners. this makes a mockry of everything that we do in our foreign aid programs to try to encourage democracy and the rule of law, because in the critical foreign policy area we have explicit continuous notorioius violation of law. but not only should the administration follow the law because it's the law, which

strikes me as good constitutional practice, but the fact is that we should sanction those companies that are investing in iran's oil sector. if we had followed the law since the late 1990s, the accumulated effect of this might well have put the iranian government in a position where it had to deal with regard to its nuclear program. at this point, i think that the best sanctions, because now we have a very short amount of time, would be to get russia and china obboard, and that would require telling beijing and moscow that such issues as trade and the access to u.s. markets, such issues as mold dove va or others are on the table. but as long as the only thing on the table are lectures from the united states as to why they should agree with us on iran even though we threaten them with nothing and offer them with nothing, that nonbargaining approach is a guaranteed failure.

>> could you talk a little bit about the position that israel is in at this point. i mean, it seems like they're in a, kind of a very -- they're in a very difficult situation. should he have come, should they not have come? and also, the question of whether they will attack iran if the sanctions don't seem to be going anywhere. they've gone it before in the 70s. do you think that there is a real risk? and potentially even a justification, for israel to attack iran in the next year or two? and potentially having huge consequences on the united states. >> i think there's an incredibly large justification. i mean, here you have a country dedicated publicly to a second holocaust. and working every day effectively without any serious world reaction to achieving the tools to create that second

holocaust. on the other hand, israel's military option is extremely difficult. it could, you know, it is israel that prevented saddam hussein from developing nuclear weapons in the early 1980s. but that was because saddam put all of his effort into one place above ground. syria seems to have done the same thing. though what happened there last year is unofficial. but iran, their facilities are disbursed, they're underground. they have a robust or relatively robust air defense system which they're trying to make more robust with russian materials and technology. and i don't know whether an israeli military response would be limited to trying to take out the nuclear facilities or whether they would in effect be

pose sanctions through the air by making it impossible for iran to export petroleum and otherwise take out economic targets or threaten to do so. i hope very much that we see a radical change in u.s. policy that would create the kinds of sanctions that could peacefully deal with the iran nuclear program. i would doubt that that would happen. i also doubt that israel will take military action. the most likely scenario for us five years from now is living in a very dangerous world in which both north korea and iran, and iran is far more am bishes and therefore far more dangerous. i don't doubt they'll both have nuclear weapons five years from now. >> what about whether or not israel's prime minister should

be coming tho to the summit this week. there's been reporting that he decided not to, some of the muslim countries are coming, they would have pressured israel into signing the nonproliferation treaty. is it a good decision that he is not coming, a bad decision? and what are your thoughts about signing the nuclear nonproliferation treaty? >> india, pakistan and israel have all not signed the treaty and are therefore in a separate category from those countries that have. in contrast, north korea and iran have signed the nonproliferation treaty and so they're in the category of violator. i would say that for israel to sign the nonproliferation treaty at a time when iran is able to envile yate it with immunity might be creart to their national security interests.

it is interesting that those states that are saying that israel should sign the treaty are not doing anything effective to make sure that iran lives by the treaty and are not even suggesting that pakistan sign the treaty. i think that the future long-term existence of pakistan is not being placed in doubt, where there is a considerable worldwide effort to expel israel and wipe it off the map. >> and what about the prime minister's decision not to come? >> i don't know what motivated that decision. but if by not coming he avoids this effort to try to force israel to sign the npt while pakistan doesn't and iran signs it and violates it, if by not coming he can avoid pressure to be in that situation i would understand. i would hope that his nonattendance has nothing to do

with this recent flap about what was announced while biden was on the ground in jerusalem. i think that that page is turned from that issue. >> can i turn the conversation to the notion of security at u.s. labs. there have been in recent years concerns about security breaches at u.s. labs. and i wanted to ask you, first of all, are you confident that those are now under control and that we're not going to have proliferation related issues from within u.s. borders?  and second of all, to the extent that we have had concerns on u.s. soil, doesn't that just demonstrate just sort of how tricky the prospect is of asking other countries to secure their nuclear materials? >> i think the fact that we've had some problems in the united states illustrates just how important this is. and i think your question is

right on the mark. it shows that this is difficult. it's important. even the u.s. doesn't always get it right. and with the medical ice topes and other medical nuclear materials in so many places around the world, i'm glad that we are having a an international conference to focus attention on handling these materials properly. as to what steps should be taken at u.s. labs, that's more dealt with by other committees in congress. but i do agree with you that any -- that we've got a second reason to have the best possible controls in the united states. and that second reason is to inspire the world to improve their controls as well. >> there are 48 countries i believe that are going to be represented at the summit on monday and tuesday. of those, which do you consider to have the most potential problems or to need the most work in terms of coming up with

a plan for, coming up with an agreement for, and coming up with the money for getting their nuclear materials under control? is it pakistan and russiana? are there other countries that are more off the radar that we need to be really concerned about? >> well, i think pakistan and russia are high on that list. but for very different reasons. pakistan has limited nuclear materials, i think that their military puts a high premium on maintaining control of those materials. but a comp fent military is only as stable as the constitutional system or the country that it fights for. and there are internal divisions in pakistan, and not always is the constitution followed. and so instability in pakistan is at least a possibility and it is a nuclear state, not just

with highly enriched medical nuclear materials that somebody could try to assemble from here and there into a nuclear device, but pakistan's a country with nuclear devices. russia has tremendously improved from the days of borrissyeltsen, but here's a country with many thousands of battlefield nuclear weapons, and i'm not absolutely certain that russia has proper accounting and security for each one of those weapons. those weapons would not destroy an entire meg op luss but even the smallest of nuclear explosions would not only kill many, many people but shake the world's international system to the core. >> if you could talk a little bit about the start treaty.

there's already some republican opposition in the senate. it just seems like we don't have anything approaching a bipartisan consensus now. i mean, it seems like everything that's been coming before congress, whether it be health care or this treaty, has become something that's become a political football. is your sense that there might be a political consensus that could be reached on this, or is there concern on your part that there's the foreign policy consensus just isn't there? that you're starting to see people saying president obama is weakening our security by giving up some of our nukes? >> well, there are two different issues there. one is, should our foreign policy be bipartisan and should we avoid making any part of it a political football. that's critically important that we achieve that.

and i share your concerns that now everything seems to be a political football. and i would hate to think that our ability to make the world safer from nuclear weapons becomes just another political football, just another thing to try to mobilize the base of this or that political party. the second issue is the consensus. and while i support a bipartisan approach to foreign policy, i myself am kind of outside the consensus on quite a number of issues. i think you need to have some different ideas brought forward. i think we've, our foreign policy for the last 15, 20 years has been very much not in the economic or national security interests of the united states. and so i hope that in our effort to all get together in a nonpartisan way that doesn't

mean democrats and republicans get together to embrace a consensus and to snuff out voices calling for any radical change of any part of our foreign policy. i think that missile defense has become a partisan issue. the one thing that's missing from that debate is an understanding that probably not with regard to russia but with regard to iran or north korea the most likely delivery system is that they would smuggle the weapon. this would give them applausible deniabilty, this would mean that they would not have to rely on technology which might only be 50/50 or 60/40 as whether their missile reached anywhere near the target let alone hit the precise target. smuggling a weapon can get you to the exact intersection that you want that weapon to be at. and it's not hard to smuggle a weapon into the united states. you could smuggle one inside a

bail of marijuana. so while there is this partisan fixation on missile defense, there is very little discussion of the fact that while our borders might be made a bit more secure and that might have some effect on undocumented immigration or even on drug importation, the security service of a country capable of developing nuclear weapons can smuggle a weapon into this country. >> as far as tougher sanctions, the kind umt for iran, the house consensus has clearly shown an interest in having a much tougher sanctions regime than is being talked about. what is your sense of why the president hasn't really gone that route? hasn't been really talking that much about cutting off their gasoline supplies, block cading the country, anything that would be really tough? what's your sense? is it that it's just too difficult to go to china, go to russia and negotiate these

sorts of things? and they want to have some kind of a deal? what's your sense of why he hasn't embraced those kinds of efforts? >> well, i think the obama administration and the current state department reflect the views of the prior eight years under the bush administration and going back further. while there are cable news networks that can gain ratings by exaggerating the foreign policy differences and politicians who may do that, the fact is that most of our foreign policy is of very establishment, very uncreative, very bureaucratic process in which only those with limited views are really invited to the table. the reason we haven't done it is that we're unwilling to prioritize. i was in condoleezza rice's office talking with her well before many, many months before the russia-georgia war, and --

or at least many weeks before, and urged her to talk to the russians about our need for radical changes in their policy toward iran and our willingness to review the desires of -- for independence for the people. and she looked at me like i was from mars. and in fact, in doing so she was reflecting the view of the entire building. the idea that there is anything on our list of established positions that we would change just to achieve a more important priority, that's not a kind of thinking that goes on in the state department. or in foreign policy circles in general. you take a position on trans dense sterlmaled dovea and the

fact that might be less important, you're not allowed to go there. so when you think in terms of offering anything to russia or china or if you think in terms of threatening russia or china with any adverse consequences, that's been totally taken off the table. the last administration and this administration limit themselves to sending smart people to beiging and moscow to convince russia and china that they should be on our side because that's the smart thing to do. the other thing for china is for us to hint that there might be some lack of total openness to our market to their experts if -- exports if they continue to subsidize iran, there you're up against wal-mart and wall

street. and that's those are two forces that neither the bush administration nor the obama administration have been willing to take on just for the purpose of dealing with the iran nuclear program. likewise, if we were to actually follow the law called the iran sanctions act, european governments would be upset. so so far we wouldn't -- haven't been willing to upset anybody, offer anything, or threaten anybody in order to get sanctions on iran, and that's why we don't have anything but the smallest efforts at the tiniest sanctions. >> congressman, we have time for one more question. >> i suppose this bodes somt asking. but nonproliferation costs money, costs money whether the united states is buying back highly enriched uranium or whether the u.s. is helping other countries to convert their supplies. and there's not that much money floating around that's

available right now in the federal budget. the health care plan was very expensive. the plus stimulus plan. in terms of bipartisanship, is there a consensus that it is worth spending hundreds of millions of dollars to further the cause of international nonproliferation? >> i think it's close to a bipartisan consensus. it certainly should be. and hundreds of millions of dollars compared to the cost to the world economy if a nuclear bomb goes off in anger anywhere in the world, let alone the cost to the united states if it goes off here. and i think the best investment we can make in our national security are steps to try to keep the worst hands off the most powerful weapons and nuke clearly material. that being said, i would hope that in designing how we spend this money we try to create as many jobs in the united states, because then we help achieve

the economic stimulus that we're already willing to spend well over $800 billion to achieve. >> before we let you go, will the congress returns next week, will you be taking part on the sidelines of this summit? will you have meetings yourself? >> we are going to have hearings in my subcommittee and at the full committee level. i expect to be involved in a very peripheral way in the discussions next week and i think this is just the beginning of -- a continuation of a very long process. >> congressman brad sherman, the chairman of the foreign affairs subcommittee on terrorism and nonproliferation. thank you, sir, for your time. >> thank you. >> i want to spend a few more minutes with our reporters and talk about what you heard today. margaret, what about his comments about this summit? >> i think his comments are

shared bay number of people in congress in terms of having gridholds but fairly limited expectations. and in terms of having so many concerns that are tied to nonproliferation but are not directly about nonproliferation. the posture the united states is taking now the change towards how it uses nuclear weapons, in terms of iran sanctions. the summit is not going to stand on its own. it will be connected to so many different political variables and policy variables. >> the congressman, a democrat from california, sounds very critical of the obama administration's position. >> well, he has been. that's not a universal feeling. the feelings in congress are all across the spectrum in terms of whether thing president obama has been right on the money or whether they do different things. and you see how hard it is to get consensus just in the united states. throw in 46, 47 countries and you understand truly how

complicated it is. >> i think the white house is trying to look at this as an opportunity, the conference is an opportunity to make a couple -- score some points on the board, have a couple incremental agreements, things like he was talking about, the medical facilities, and trying to deal with that particular smaller issue. and build on what he accomplished with this agreement with russia, you know, hoping to get that through the senate. and to start scoring some points on this nuclear issue. the problem is that some of the bigger intract cable issues, whether it be israel and iran or pakistan or north korea, there really hasn't been a whole lot of progress on. the administration keeps talking about how they're going to try and develop a big coalition for sanctions against iran, but people, critics like brad sherman are looking at it and saying where's the beef re